Writing based on reading and listening

You will have 3 minutes to read a passage about an academic topic. While you read, you may take notes on scrap paper.

Then you will listen to a lecture about the same topic.

You may take notes while you listen.

After the lecture is over, you will have 20 minutes to write a response to a question that asks you about the relationship between the lecture and the reading passage. Try to answer the question as completely as possible using information from the reading passage and the lecture.

Your response will be evaluated on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response will be 150 to 225 words.

The Reading

Rembrandt is the most famous of the seventeenth-century Dutch painters. However, there are doubts whether some paintings attributed to Rembrandt were actually painted by him. One such painting is known as attributed to Rembrandt because of its style, and indeed the representation of the woman’s face is very much like that of portraits known to be by Rembrandt. But there are problems with the painting that suggest it could not be a work by Rembrandt.

First, there is something inconsistent about the way the woman in the portrait is dressed. She is wearing a white linen cap of a kind that only servants would wear-yet the coat she is wearing has a luxurious fur collar that no servant could afford. Rembrandt, who was known for his attention to the details of his subjects’ clothing, would not have been guilty of such an inconsistency.

Second, Rembrandt was a master of painting light and shadow, but in this painting these elements do not fit together. The face appears to be illuminated by light reflected onto it from below. But below the face is the dark fur collar, which would absorb light rather than reflect it. So the face should appear partially in shadow-which is not how it appears. Rembrandt would never have made such an error.

Finally, examination of the back of the painting reveals that it was painted on a panel made of several pieces of wood glued together. Although Rembrandt often painted on wood panels, no painting known to be by Rembrandt uses a panel glued together in this way from several pieces of wood.

Listening Script

Everything you just read about “Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet” is true, and yet after a thorough re-examination of the painting, a panel of experts has recently concluded that it’s indeed a work by Rembrandt. Here is why.
First, the fur collar. X-rays and analysis of the pigments in the paint have shown that the fur collar wasn’t part of the original painting. The fur collar was painted over the top of the original painting about a hundred years after the painting was made. Why? Someone probably wanted to increase the value of the painting by making it look like a formal portrait of an aristocratic lady.
Second, the supposed error with light and shadow. Once the paint of the added fur color was removed, the original painting could be seen. In the original painting, the woman is wearing a simple collar of light-colored cloth. The light-colored cloth of this collar reflects light that illuminated part of the woman’s face. That’s why the face is not in partial shadow. So in the original painting, light and shadow are very realistic and just what we could expect from Rembrandt.
Finally, the wood panel. It turns out that when the fur collar was added, the wood panel was also enlarged with extra wood pieces glued to the sides and the top to make the painting more grand and more valuable. So the original painting is actually painted on a single piece of wood, as would be expected from a Rembrandt painting. And in fact, researchers have found that the piece of wood in the original form of “Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet” is from the very same tree as the wood panel used for another painting by Rembrandt, his “Self-portrait with a Hat”.

My response

The lecture and the reading are both discussing the origins of Portrait of an Elderly Woman in White Bonnet. While the reading claims that Rembrandt is not the original author of that portrait. The lecture contradicts it by arguing that the original author was Rembrandt but later it was modified in order to increase the price. The lecturer refutes each point made in the reading.

First of all, the reading states that there is an inconsistency in the way the woman is dressed in the portrait. The lecture however refutes this by arguing that there are 2 layers of color, the first one from the original author. The experts support that the second layer is not original and could have been added in order to increase the value of the portrait. Due to the fact that the colors in the second layer are not original, the portrait seems to have an inconsistency in the color of the clothes.

Secondly, the reading argues that the lights and shadows in the painting do not fit together. On the other hand, the lecturer refutes this by saying that this occurs because the second layer is not realistic, moreover the first layer, which is original, could have realistic lights and shadows.

Finally, the reading supports that the painting is a failure because it is painted on a panel made of several pieces of wood. The lecturer refutes this by saying that the original painting was on a single piece of wood. However, someone added other pieces of wood in order to have a larger painting. The experts support this belief because the wood in the portrait is the same as other paintings from this artist.

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Writing Based on Knowledge and Experience

DirectionsRead the question below. You have 30 minutes to plan, write, and revise your essay. Typically, an effective essay will contain a minimum of 300 words.

It is more important to keep your old friends than it is to make new friends

Our friends are an important aspect of our life. Probably we have met a lot of people during our lives, and some of them are close friends. Moreover, anytime is perfect to meet new people and include them into our daily lives. However, is it more important to keep your old friends than it is to make new friends?

First of all, meeting new people is very important. When we meet new people we can learn a lot of things from them, they can change the way we think. Getting in touch with other people from other cultures teach us other ways to think, other types of behaviour, and that knowledge enriches us. I am always meeting new people, I can say that I am always learnings new things. We must open our minds and meet new people in order to learn new things.

In my point of view, there is a very important part of life that changes us forever, and that is childhood. When we are children we start to shape our personalities, and our close friends will change us forever. It is very often that people keep their old friends, this is because your close friends and you are very similar. Our personalities comes from our family and from our friends. You and your friends all have similar interests. On the one hand, your personal interests change due to your friends. On the other hand, your friends’ interests are made up from you. The music you listen to or the movies you like have been altered because of your relationships. Even the way we behave is influenced by our friends. We can not choose our family, but we can change our relationships. We must be near people that make us happy.

To sum up, meeting new people makes us learn new things, it enriches us and makes us better people. We should not be closed to meeting new people because it helps us to learn new things everyday. However, our close friends are really important because they are very similar to us. The key is to keep old friends and make new ones.